Creating a Valentine’s Day Cartoon with Corel Painter IX.5 (part 3)
Published by Matt Glover January 23rd, 2007 in Digital Image Editing
So far in this tutorial I have shared a little about how I used Corel Painter IX.5 to ink over a pencil draft that I have scanned in. Then, using the digital watercolour brush, I began adding colour to the larger areas of the cartoon.
To add colour to the smaller parts, I basically followed the same procedure, but also made a point of adding extra shadows and highlights to make the characters stand out and give a bit more depth to the image. The screen shot below shows the cartoon at the end of this stage:
While Painter is EXCELLENT at drawing and painting, when it comes to manipulating images - adding text and the like - it seems to be a bit clunky. Thus, at this point I saved the image to a TIF file and opened it in Corel PhotoPaint X3, quickly adding the speech balloon, text, and MattGlover.com logo.
I always save any piece I am working on in the native format of the software package. In this case, I have one saved in Painter (RIFF) without the text, and one saved in PhotoPaint (CPT) with the text. If I need to make changes to these images down the track, it is far easier to do so in the native file formats. I also save a 300dpi TIF file for print publications and a file that is used for the web.
Up until a few months ago, my web file was always saved as a 72dpi GIF file. The colour palette of a GIF is limited, which helps keep the file size down. When I was using simple block colour, this wasn’t a problem, but using digital watercolour introduced a few problems.
To see what I mean, take a look at the difference between the colours in the first a second screen shots above. You’ll notice in the first, saved as a GIF file, that the colours are a bit blotchy. In particular, look at the triangle in the middle of the colour wheel in the top, right-hand side. This is because the GIF file doesn’t have a large enough colour palette to display every single colour used in the cartoon. It simply takes a best guess in places and spoils the artwork.
Most digital cameras save photographs in JPEG (or JPG) format, which handles large colour palettes with ease. This is the format called for when working with watercolour or any image that has gradual colour transitions or large palettes. However, in JPG format images lose information every time you edit and save them in much the same way a video tape loses quality when you tape over it multiple times. Hence, only save to JPG when you’re sure you are done.
The final cartoon is shown below. I’ve called in “Cupid’s Apprentice” and will have it up for sale on my site in the next week ready for Valentine’s Day!
If you use Painter or PhotoPaint, I’d love to hear about some of the techniques you use to create your cartoons. Leave a comment!
4 Responses to “Creating a Valentine’s Day Cartoon with Corel Painter IX.5 (part 3)”
- 1 Pingback on Jan 26th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Matt,
This series is just what the Doctor ordered for me. I’m using Painter IX on trial. It’s tutorial doesn’t cater much to cartoon drawing art. I will be refering to this series over the next few months I’m sure. Thanks for covering the different saving formats… I’ve been totally ignorant of the differences itn JPEG, TIF, etc. formats… this SHOWS the difference. Thanks tons.
Frank
Before you added the speech bubble, I thought the idea was that Death took the bow and arrow from the cupid, thus the worried look on the cupid’s face and his arms reaching for the bow. Do you think the speech bubble may be unnecessary? Very funny idea nonetheless.
Hadn’t thought of that Greg!
Often the speech bubbles aren’t needed, and simply clutter the cartoon. I reckon your idea wouldn’t need one, though I’d probably draw cupid and the reaper slightyl differently were I to go down that path.